Latest Books

Iris recognition technologies for identity management are already deployed globally in several large-scale nationwide biometric projects and are currently entering the mobile market. More recently, periocular recognition has been employed to augment the biometric performance of the iris in unconstrained environments where only the ocular region is present in the image. Iris and Periocular Biometric Recognition provides an overview of scientific fundamentals and principles of iris and periocular biometric recognition over six broad areas: an introduction to iris and periocular recognition; a selective overview of issues and challenges; soft biometric classification; security aspects; privacy protection and forensics; and future trends. With contributions from experts in industry and academia, this book is essential reading for researchers, graduate students and practitioners in biometrics and related fields.

Industrial automation is driving the development of robot manipulators in various applications, with much of the research effort focussed on flexible manipulators and their advantages compared to their rigid counterparts. This book reports recent advances and new developments in the analysis and control of these robot manipulators. After a general overview of flexible manipulators the book introduces a range of modelling and simulation techniques based on the Lagrange equation formulation, parametric approaches based on linear input/output models using system identification techniques, neuro-modelling approaches, and numerical techniques for dynamic characterisation using finite difference and finite element techniques. Control techniques are then discussed, including a range of open-loop and closed-loop control techniques based on classical and modern control methods including neuro and iterative control, and a range of softcomputing control techniques based on fuzzy logic, neural networks, and evolutionary and bio-inspired optimisation paradigms. Finally the book presents SCEFMAS, a software environment for analysis, design, simulation and control of flexible manipulators. Flexible Robot Manipulators is essential reading for advanced students of robotics, mechatronics and control engineering and will serve as a source of reference for research in areas of modelling, simulation and control of dynamic flexible structures in general and, specifically, of flexible robotic manipulators.

Robot-assisted healthcare offers benefits for repetitive, intensive and task specific training compared to traditional manual manipulation performed by physiotherapists. However, a majority of existing rehabilitation devices use rigid actuators such as electric motors or hydraulic cylinders which cannot guarantee the safety of patients; novel soft robots combining soft and compliant actuators with stiff skeletons offer a better alternative. This book focuses on the development of these soft robotics for rehabilitation purposes. Topics covered include an introduction to soft robots and the state of the art of their use in healthcare; concept and modelling of a soft rehabilitation actuator - the Peano muscle; design of the reactive Peano muscle; soft wrist rehabilitation robot; development and control of a soft ankle rehabilitation robot (SARR); design, modelling and control strategies of a gait rehabilitation exoskeleton (GAREX); and conclusions and future work. This book presents novel applications of mechatronics to provide better clinical rehabilitation services and new insights into emerging technologies utilized in soft robots for healthcare, and is essential reading for researchers and students working in these and related fields.

Nature presents examples of active sensing which are unique, sophisticated and incredibly fascinating. There are animals that sense the environment actively, for example through echolocation, which have evolved their capabilities over millions of years and that, as a result of evolution, have developed unique in-built sensing mechanisms that are often the envy of synthetic systems. This book presents some of the recent work that has been carried out to investigate how sophisticated sensing techniques used in nature can be applied to radar and sonar systems to improve their performance. Topics covered include biosonar inspired signal processing and acoustic imaging from echolocating bats; enhanced range resolution: comparison with the matched filter; air-coupled sonar systems inspired by bat echolocation; analysis of acoustic echoes from bat-pollinated plants; the biosonar arms race between bats and insects; biologically inspired coordination of guidance and adaptive radiated waveform for interception and rendezvous problems; cognitive sensor/ processor system framework for target tracking; the biosonar of the Mediterranean bottlenose dolphins; human echolocation; and polarization tensors and object recognition in weakly electric fish. Biologically-Inspired Radar and Sonar is essential reading for radar and sonar practitioners in academia and research, governmental and industrial organisations, engineers working in signal processing and sensing, and those with an underlying interest in the interaction between natural sciences and engineering.

With the rapid progress in networking and computing technologies, a wide variety of network-based computing applications have been developed and deployed on the internet. Flexible and effective service provisioning for supporting the diverse applications is a key requirement for the next generation internet. However, the current internet lacks sufficient capability for meeting this requirement, mainly due to the ossification caused by tight coupling between network architecture and infrastructure. Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA), which has been widely adopted in cloud computing via the Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS), Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS), and Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) paradigms, may be applied in networking to decouple network architecture and infrastructure; thus offering a promising approach to addressing some fundamental challenges to the next generation Internet. In general, such a service-oriented networking paradigm is referred to as Network as-a-Service (NaaS). This book presents the state of the art of the NaaS paradigm, including its concepts, architecture, key technologies, applications, and development directions for future network service provisioning. It provides readers with a comprehensive reference that reflects the most current technical developments related to NaaS.

Mobile data traffic is expected to exceed traffic from wired devices in the next couple of years. This emerging future will be empowered by revolutionary 5G radio network technologies with a focus on application-driven connectivity, transparently deployed over various technologies, infrastructures, users and devices to realise the vision of 'the Internet of Everything'. This book presents a roadmap of 5G, from advanced radio technologies to innovative resource management approaches and novel network architectures and system concepts. Topics covered include challenges for efficient multi-service coexistence for 5G below 6GHz; new quasi-deterministic approaches to channel modelling in millimetre-wave bands; large scale antenna systems; effects of densification and randomness of infrastructure deployment in cellular networks; wireless device-to-device (D2D) Links for machine-to-machine (M2M) communication; caching in large wireless networks; full duplexing; decoupled uplink and downlink access in heterogeneous networks; wireless networks virtualisation; and regulation, business and technology perspectives on licensed shared access (LSA) and three-tier spectrum sharing models. 5G Wireless Technologies is an essential guide to this emerging system for researchers, engineers and advanced students working in telecommunications and networking.

This book introduces researchers and advanced students with a basic control systems background to an array of control techniques which they can easily implement and use to meet the required performance specifications for their mechatronic applications. It is the result of close to two decades of work of the authors on modeling, simulating and controlling different mechatronic systems from the motion control, automotive control and micro and nano-mechanical systems control areas. The methods presented in the book have all been tested by the authors and a very large group of researchers, who have produced practically implementable controllers with highly successful results. The approach that is recommended in this book is to first start with a conventional control method which may then be cascaded with a feedforward controller if the input is known or can be measured with a preview; to add a disturbance observer if unknown disturbances are to be rejected and if regulation of the uncertain plant about a nominal model is desired; and to add a repetitive controller to take care of any periodic inputs of fixed and known period. Case studies ranging from road vehicle yaw stability control and automated path following, to decoupling control of piezotube actuators in an atomic force microscope are presented. Parameter space based methods are used in the book for achieving robust controllers. Control of Mechatronic Systems is essential reading for researchers and advanced students who want to be exposed to control methods that have been field tested in a wide variety of mechatronic applications, and for practicing engineers who design and implement feedback control systems.

Interest in Information and Communication Technologies for human monitoring, smart health and assisted living is growing due to the significant impact that these technologies are expected to have on improving the quality of life of ageing populations around the world. This book brings together chapters written by a range of researchers working in these topics, providing an overview of the areas and covering current research, developments and applications for a readership of researchers and research-led engineering practitioners. It discusses the promises and the possible advantages of these technologies, and also indicates the challenges for the future. Topics covered include: personal monitoring and health data acquisition in smart homes; contactless monitoring of respiratory activity; technology-based assistance of people with dementia; wearable sensors for gesture analysis; design and prototyping of home automation systems for the monitoring of elderly people; multi-sensor platform for circadian rhythm analysis; smart multi-sensor solutions for activity detection; human monitoring based on heterogeneous sensor networks; mobile health for vital signs and gait monitoring systems; and smartphone-based blood pressure monitoring for falls risk assessment.